Magnus Carlsen will defend his World Chess Championship crown next week in New York City

Current World Chess Champion Magus Carlsen of Norway will defend
his title against a new challenger, Russia's Sergey Karjakin, in
New York City starting on November 11, with games running through
November 30, if needed.

It's the first time a championship has been contested in New York
since 1995, when then World Champion Garry Kasparov took on
Viswanathan Anand.

Kasparov won that match, which was held under the auspices of the
Profesional Chess Association, a short-lived breakaway entity
formed by Kasparov and other players frustrated with the
organization of major-league chess. (The "split" title was later
reunified.)

But Anand would go on to capture the title five times — and face
Carlsen in the last two WCCs.

The big disappointment for the US this time around is that in the
2016 Candidates Tournament, held to determine Carlsen's opponent
for the WCC, not one but two Americans were in the running:
Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana.

Caruana brought it right down to the wire, losing a must-win
match against Karjakin and in the process putting the Russian
opposite Carlsen to fight for the 2016 title. A big missed
opportunity, given that Caruana has posted good results against
Carlsen and has often been discussed as a potential World
Champion. But Caruna didn't dwell on the critical loss; he came
back to the US from Moscow to win the US Championship in
convincing fashion.

Caruana got close.Alina
L'Ami

I talked to him briefly this summer before the Sinquefield Cup, a
top professional even held annually at the Chess Club and
Scholastic Center of St. Louis, which has become the Yankee
Stadium of American chess.

"It didn’t work out," he said of his effort at the Candidates,
deploying the easygoing humility for which he has become known in
the edgy and at times cutthroat world of big-time pro chess.

Although Caruana did go almost all the way, he admitted that he
"wasn’t prepared well enough before the Candidates Tournament."

"I needed more stamina," he said.

The show must go on, and Karjakin — the world's No. 9-ranked
player with a rating of 2772 — at 26 is the youngest opponent
Carlsen, 25, has faced for a title challenge (Anand was in his
40s). Carlsen is the No. 1 player in the world, with a rating of
2853. By that tale of the tape, Kajakin should lose, but he does
have a decent record against Carlsen, and the two men grew up
playing against each other.

Sergey Karjakin, the challenger.World Chess

"Magnus is a little bit slow in the beginnings," said Ilya
Merenzon, CEO of Agon, the company that's organizing the 2016 WCC
for the game's governing body, FIDE.

"Sergey will try to beat him in the opening, then hold on for
dear life. Expect some fireworks. Both players will try to come
up with really cool openings." (Openings are the deeply studied
first moves in a chess match.)

Merenzon added that Karjakin has the entire Russian chess
machine behind him — and it is a formidable apparatus.

"The top players in the world are going to working with
him. It’s an arms race now, and I know how big the teams are —
they're massive."

The match will consist of a planned 12 games (with tie-breaks
thereafter) and be held at the Fulton Market in the South Street
Seaport. According to Merenzon, there will be VIP access
for the live event, alongside regular ticketing, but there will
also be some innovative online broadcast options, including
multiple cameras and virtual reality.

The idea is to take a sport that's difficult to watch and
understand — WCC-level games can consume many hours, during which
time spectators are watching the players silently think — and
transform it into something more thrilling.

The
Fulton Market will be the venue.AGON

Merenzon stressed that the organizers want to increase the
"drama and intensity" so that the WCC feels like a major sporting
event — like the "most important thing in the world," he
said.

"We’re taking from boxing and from entertainment," he said.
"It’s going to be a show — it’s going to be emotions."

Agon's broadcast deal is exclusive and restricts access to
the actual moves of the game for a defined period of time, a
controversial policy, but one that the chess world was introduced
to before the Candidates.

The cost for the WCC package will be $15 for whole match, "less
than a movie," Merenzon said.

The preparation of the venue will come down to the wire. A WCC
requires a very specific arrangement for players and spectators,
and according to Merenzon, that means the work, costing $2
million, will be completed "very last minute — a couple of days
before the event."

That said, Carlsen and his entourage have already checked out the
space and, Merenzon said, approved of it. As far as notable fans
go, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are reportedly planning to be
in New York for the match.

New York is a great chess city, going back over a century and
running right through the difficult career of the last American
World Champion, Bobby Fischer, who grew up in Brooklyn. The 1995
Kasparov-Anand showdown was held at the World Trade Center, so
it's appropriate that the 2016 match will be held nearby, in
lower Manhattan.

There is a whiff of the old Cold War tension as well. Carlsen is
the first World Champion from the West since Fischer, and
Karjakin was in favor of Russian annexation of the Crimea in
2014, The Guardian reported. The prize money is significant as
well, if a bit fuzzy. It should be something like $1 million.